Call it nostalgia, call it retro, call it what you want but there is no denying that anything relating to the 1980's is very, very popular at the moment. Movies such as The A-Team, Transformers, G.I. Joe, Inspector Gadget, Ghostbusters, The Predator, RoboCop, Total Recall are all revivals of properties that made their mark during the much coveted decade. Steven Spielberg's forthcoming Ready Player One, the trailer of which premiered at this summers SDCC (San Diego Comic-Con) is another movie that will ride high on fans nostalgia for the '80's, featuring virtual reality environments populated by movie and TV icons from the period, such as Freddy Krueger (Nightmare on Elm Street), the DeLorean (Back to The Future), The Interceptor (Mad Max) and the Light-Cycle (Tron).
Future Man is an original series for the American streaming service Hulu, the first season of which will run for 13 episodes beginning November 14. The series stars Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games) as the series protagonist Josh Futterman; a janitor at a laboratory developing a cure for herpes who spends most of his time playing video games. After completing a new game Josh is greeted by two warriors (Eliza Coupe and Derek Wilson) from a post-apocalyptic future, caused by the aforementioned cure for Herpes, developed by his boss, portrayed by the legendary Keith David. Josh and his two new 'friends' travel back in time to the 1980's to stop the cure from ever having been developed. The series also stars Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense) and Glenne Headly (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels), the latter of which sadly passed away during the filming of the series.
Produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, Future Man sounds, and looks very much like a bizarre mix of The Last Starfighter, Back to the Future, Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure and The Terminator, all with a light-hearted and comical twist which could very well be what science fiction on the small screen needs, with all too many science fiction adaptations on the big and small screen taking themselves a little too seriously.
